Family
by Keahi08
Summary: Ryou, in the mind he shares with the Spirit of the Ring, The Thief King, and even Marik, learned to not give up, but accept.   Slighted, almost Gemshipping and Thiefshipping


I have not given up hope – I think it's more I've just accepted things as they are.

"Kifa?" I call, enjoying one if his memories. "What's this from?"

He is wallowing in what used to be, not quite enjoying my company, but he forces a smile and a choked laugh. "I was young." He reaches up and touches the scar on his face with his large hand, with all those white marks against the fingers and all that dirt under the nails. There is dirt because he isn't real. "I don't think I remember the exact details."

He doesn't. I delve deeper to find static but I wasn't that curious to begin with. I should tend to him, I think. He seems lonely. "Akiefa."

The Thief King is becoming so good at forcing smiles for me, but I can't understand why he thinks he needs to smile. The spirit puts on no façade, he just takes, and Akiefa to do the same, but he doesn't. He's too lonely. Does he like me? Does he simply not care? He does not act here like he acts in his slide-show memories he shows me, trapped with me in my own mind as the Spirit of the Ring wears my skin, holds our name, chases my friends.

I have not given up, but I've accepted. And perhaps, that is what he has done.

"Boy, time to be useful."

The Spirit pulled me out and his memories flooded me. I was to act as if nothing is wrong for him, smile, wave, leave, and he will come back. I played my part as his puppet, smile at the antics of my friends—

iThe Pharaoh and his ragtag team of cheerleaders are hardly your friends,/i Akiefa told me. I sighed. He hated being in there with The Spirit – they rub each other entirely the wrong way – but he didn't have to let out his bad mood on me.

Hush, I told them, and I moved forward to converse with the group before we separated. They were looking for someone. An Acquaintance of the Spirit's, if his memories were correct. Of a boy tanned as the Thief King is, with pale blond hair and a malicious grin—and Oh, I see. He held something useful. The Millennium Rod.

"And idiot of a thing," scorned The Spirit, settling back into my body. "Thinks he's big and bad, and I could break him like a twig, you should see his waist."

Akiefa scoffed. "Like I wanna check out your boyfriend."

When I first met Marik, I was pretending to be wounded. Well, I had been wounded. Stabbed, actually, in the arm. But it was a purposeful thing made out to be an accident. My head swam as The Spirit's conversation with him earlier flooded my ears. Marik was going to play the innocent card, too. All I really did was say I was hurt and I was carted off to the hospital.

"You're a terrible Host," Akiefa growled, pulled out of his memories. I remembered why I hated being in control of that body at that time – because those two gave me constant headaches.

"And you're a terrible thief." The smirk was evident in the Spirit's voice as he sat back and marveled at his plan.

As I laid in that hospital bed, I tried to figure out just what was happening. How this had started. What I was. What we were. I wouldn't figure it out until much, much later.

Seeing as how I never paid attention to what The Spirit did when he took my body, seeing Marik appear in my – our – subconsciousness one day was a little shocking. But, like everything, I took it in strides. I looked him up and down and went back to talking with the Thief King.

He was out of place. This was understandable because it was my head, but it was obvious he was not yet used to taking things like I had learned to. The art of not giving up, but accepting. He didn't like how Akiefa and I casually talked, as if he weren't there, so he marched further into the core of our mind to talk with The Spirit he simply called 'Bakura.'

"Hey, Kid." Akiefa stood, slowly following after him but catching up in a few short strides. "Where do you think you're going?"

"That's Marik," he hissed, his voice giving away he was young, like me. I didn't understand where his malicious intents came from. "And I'm going to talk to Bakura. I don't where the hell I am or who the hell you are—"

"I am Bakura," The King told him, calmly, though with a hint of ever-present urgency and frustration under the tone. He flicked his head towards me. "And so is he. We are Bakura. This is Bakura. And for now, you are Bakura."

We weren't just Bakura, I knew that much. What were we?

"Well," Marik said, awkwardly. He blushed, embarrassed, and looked around the abyss of our mind as if to distract himself. "It's been… pleasant, being Bakura with all of you—"

The Thief King howls with laughter, and the Spirit smirks, but Marik nervously continues.

"—But I'm afraid I'll have to be off. Have… fun. I guess."

"Dear Gods, this kid is too much fun." Akiefa looked up and smiles at the Spirit of the Ring, something he rarely did. "I can see why you… Heh. Fun, either way. Eh, Ryou?"

"Mm?" I looked up and watched the older half of me smile with amusement, and nodded. "Marik? He is a bit fun to fluster, isn't he?"

"Oh, shut up!" Marik's face flushed darker and I could see him resist the urge to stomp his foot. "Bakura, what are you snickering about—Get me the hell out of here!"

"Ready to leave already?" The Spirit – I laughed. Bakura. – walked over like a predator and smiled, turning Marik around and fading into the darkness. "I thought you were making yourself quite at home amongst our little family of one."

Family.

That's what it was.


End file.
